


and there isn't anything more

by cicadas



Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies)
Genre: Character Study, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Gen, Past Child Abuse, Past Torture, Vol. 2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-23
Updated: 2017-09-23
Packaged: 2019-01-04 10:23:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,061
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12167040
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cicadas/pseuds/cicadas
Summary: she's always hungry, and eating doesn't fix it. adding to a row of dysfunctions like the whir of a motor. her pain is more united than her own body.





	and there isn't anything more

 

They're all sitting, eating, talking.

Further away, she's seperate and seperated. One wrist is bound to the other, one hand, one claw. A creature.

She's deaf for a moment. She hears screaming in her head. Then her cybernetics kick in and noise fills her ears once more. Chatter, talk about absolutely nothing of importance.

Guardians, of what? There are so many united galaxies, their importance means nothing. None of them have saved her. One of them could have, so many times. (So many nights Gamora put thin fingers to wires and the loud buzzing would stop and she could actually sleep or the kink in her knee would straighten or her eyes would align and she could see straight once more) but she doesn't remember those things.

They don't look her way once. They are not friends of hers.

 

 

 

Large man, scarred face. She takes in the details like time. Rough hair, pinkish skin, possibly Torakkian? Probably not.

He's hitting Yondu, the leader - not anymore. The fox is poking fun, stirring, riling up the large one. Idiot. To her side, the airlock closes once more with someone on the wrong side of it. So many have died already, and to be honest she is tired of it. Tired of death. Tired of seeing bodies, lifeless.

A step forward. "That's enough killing for today." She speaks, and her voice is a machine.

At least it works. She is understood, and hands retreat, and the brute - _Taser_ face - steps aside.

 

The new hand stretches and whirs and feels like a living thing. Beneath false skin, she's robotic. So many parts replaced, can she even call herself Kree? (Doesn't matter. They are not friends of hers)

 

 

 

 

The ship is larger than she thought they would give her, and she reaches, plucks, bites a small dried meat and chews. She forgot how to say thank you a long time ago. No need to thank someone for mutilation. For torture, for rape, for 'when he's dead, take your knife and cut out part of his skin - now do it to yourself'. The scars were masked by those of surgeries.

'cut lower. do it, or i will.'

Thanos would see them later and smile. The closest thing to pride. And she would skip dinner, because she couldn't be around those people. Excused. No need to eat with stitches in her stomach.

("Just don't fight them Nebula, you'll only make it worse, please, Nebula, please, it'll be okay")

 

She doesn't look down when she showers.

 

 

 

 

 

She's being pulled from a ship, wrecked, broken, both her body and the craft. Green hands grip her upper arm and drag and then they are both in the air and she realises.

And hatred, and envy.

A shifted blame she won't let go of because it's all she has now.

It takes more effort to calm the want to stop, speak, talk to her, than it does to crack bones back into place and into sockets and there's a twinge in her ear where a wire was never fixed. She ignores it. For a moment, she is deaf, then she can hear.

Nebula uses two hands to grip Gamora's neck and squeeze, because if she's dead she won't have to think about her, won't have to worry if she's alive, won't want to talk any more. They're only reasons. She's all she ever had.

There isn't anything more.

She doesn't want to be in pain any more. She's hit as she squeezes, and tries to kill. She doesn't want to kill.

It's all she was good for.

The pain is unceasing and she lets her knife drop and says she has won. (She knows she will lose, always lose to her sister.)

 

 

 

A thought occurs - she has never been to a funeral before. It's uncomfortable. There are people close by, no threat, and emotion. Evident. Some part of her - what is left, maybe? - wants to cry, to mourn with them. She might, if she physically could. Aware of the mismatching colours of her skin, she leaves. Gamora follows.

She's hungry, she realises as her sister speaks of forgiveness and wanting to join, be a team, be happy and smile and not be in pain. Not anymore.

Nebula leaves.

She eats, back on her own ship, and it does nothing. She's still hungry. She's always hungry, and eating doesn't fix it. Adding to a row of dysfunctions like the whir of a motor.

Her pain is more united than her own body.

 

Idly, she thinks a gun would be of more use to Thanos than she ever was. Why did he try, keep hurting the body she once had.

Nebula flicks a switch on the control console, disengages autopilot, and doesn't think of it again.

She's aware of every ship she passes in the distance she travels. One of them may be headed where she came. Always suspicious, for good reason. One just might be a ship rigged to hurt, to kill, blasters aimed and primed and ready to fire. A ship on the reverse of her flight path, set to capture and cut. Her friends are idiots. They have enemies.  
She makes sure to have one hand on the weaponry trigger for the duration, until she's ready to land. To sleep, eat, try to fix her own wiring with one proper hand and liquor to numb the pain (if only).

Nebula flicks a switch on the control console and sends a blast out into the void of space.

 

 

("-not your fault, Gam. I should've been better")

One day she will be. (some semblance of the eternal and unceasing-) Bodies are illiterate, but hers spells p-a-i-n, splayed out in missing fingernails and blood spat between tooth gaps and cut toes (-every single day). Nebula's body is a galaxy. Parts and pieces and tech from all over moulded into the shape of who she used to be. When she was younger, growing, Gamora and she would make a game of hiding from Them that wanted her. A game, because they would ignore Gamora, only needing to find the 'other daughter'. A game, because real life was too frightening, before everything became frightening and then nothing at all scared her. They never saved her. Maybe Gamora saved her mind, in their youth. But her body is lost.

Whoever she was died a long time ago.

 


End file.
